


Black Holes and Revelations

by amidtheflowers



Series: Cosmic Love [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Smut, What else do you need honestly, black holes, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 06:41:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7880476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amidtheflowers/pseuds/amidtheflowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier doesn’t like her much. It doesn’t help when they get thrown in a black hole together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Holes and Revelations

**Author's Note:**

> It’s time I did one of these. Give the figurative stamp of approval on a ship by writing a smutty oneshot--in this case, a 16k monsterfic. 
> 
> And I may or may not have been watching a lot of Stranger Things (which you should go watch right now because, wow) hence the ‘other world’ inspiration. Except it's not at all like Stranger Things so really this is me just pimping the show I guess? At least this isn’t the Upside Down, or else romantical adventures would’ve been a tad bit more difficult.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

**Black Holes and Revelations**

.:.

.:.:.

.:.:.:.

Darcy hadn’t been sure at first, suspecting that she might just be overthinking it. But there were only so many times Darcy could walk in a room and have Bucky Barnes stand up and walk right out before it became painfully obvious.

The first time they met was in Tony Stark’s laboratory. Tony, as a gesture of ‘I’m sorry I ripped off your arm and tried to kill you’, and a ‘sorry you had to freeze yourself in Wakanda despite cryotanks being a major trigger’, engineered a brand new, shiny arm for Bucky once the dust had settled and Bucky had thawed out.

“Will you _wait?_ ” Bucky snapped behind her, jolting Darcy from her thoughts. She ignored him and walked faster, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

But she was getting ahead of herself.

It started with Tony.

.

.

.

“This place is creepy, Jane,” Darcy muttered, screwdriver between her teeth as she fiddled with a handful of screws. “Don’t you remember what happened here like, last year?”

“I’ve got the handle down. Put in the first screw,” Jane instructed, and Darcy began screwing down the handle. “And Ultron was years ago. Totally safe now.”

“And that whole thing with the Accords?”

“Fell through. Make sure it’s screwed in tight.”

“That’s what she said. And why are there so many empty rooms? Why build a giant building if you’re not even going to use all of the rooms?”

Jane sighed, leaning back on her haunches as she wiped her forehead. “This isn’t about the rooms, is it?”

Darcy shrugged, idly tossing the screwdriver from one hand to the other. “I just…I feel like I don’t really…deserve to be here.”

Jane’s eyes narrowed. “Darcy Lewis. Stop that.”

“What?”

“You didn’t get a job here because of me. You got in on your own merit. You’re smart and skilled and this research could never have gotten this far without you every step of the way. Why do you think I never got any kind of breakthrough until you started interning for me?”

“Dumb luck?”

Jane crossed her arms. “You were the one to notice the storm. You’re the one who saw Thor in the photo prints of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge— actually, weren’t you the one that strapped that camera to the roof in the first place?”

Darcy fought a smile. “Yeah, that was me.”

“Didn’t you pick up the readings in England and pull me out of the driest date of my life? And figured out how the wormhole was working? You’re not just an assistant, you’re—you’re so much more. You can see what’s not there. You’re as much of this research as I am. If not more.”

“Alright, alright, alright,” Darcy grinned, gently nudging Jane’s shoulder. “You can stop buttering me up, I get the point. I’m awesome and important.”

“So important,” Jane said firmly, then smiled as she looked at the equipment they’d been working on. “Should we give it a go?”

Darcy tilted her head thoughtfully at the large circular contraption before the two women. Jane’s never-ending quest to travel between realms had finally bloomed into a somewhat workable theory of energy compression and photons, all which fell under a general section of gobbledegook that Darcy tried to understand but mostly let Jane handle the science while she handled the tinkering. The contraption itself was an amalgam of spare parts and compact generators, a distillation tank, and a proposed hyperdrive unit that Jane had figured out a blueprint for just last week.

“I say go for it,” Darcy nodded in approval, pushing off from the floor and wiping her palms on her jeans.

Jane reached forward, but before her finger could brush against the switch, she curled her finger inside her palm and turned to Darcy.

“Safety protocol,” Jane said suddenly.

“Jane.” Darcy said tiredly.

“No, listen,” Jane shook her head at Darcy emphatically. “I know you know the lab rules, but this is falling under ‘Jane’s Unpredictable Equipment’ rules. My stuff tends to go a little…”

“Haywire?” Darcy said helpfully.

“Haywire,” Jane agreed, wringing her hands in a rare show of nervousness. Darcy made a little sound and swept her hand up Jane’s arm in a show of comfort. “So this is basically—if we built this right and my equations pull through—a portal system. Jump to and from stop points based on coordinates. Right now it’s set at…” Jane glanced at the small screen at the side of machine, “twelve-point-six billion light years north and eighty-four light years east.”

Darcy couldn’t stop from snorting. “Just eighty-four light years? Not eighty-five?”

Jane ducked her head, hiding a smile. “If it works I want it to be published with those numbers. It’s funny.”

“It totally is. So, safety protocol?”

“Right! Right, so. This,” Jane held up a remote. “Would theoretically give you a new set of coordinates so you could come back. It’s linked to the machine. If something goes wrong, hit the red button. It goes in reverse and would pull me back to this room. If you get pulled in too, as long as you have this remote we could come back. Um, but that’s all really theoretical and honestly I’ll be happy if this even turns on.”

Darcy grinned, taking the remote from Jane and tossing it between her hands. “Got it, boss lady. Should I back up now?”

“Get in position.”

Darcy tried not to skip to the little ‘x’ mark a few feet away marked by two strips of electric tape, putting a little jaunt in her step instead. Jane glanced behind her shoulder at Darcy. “Countdown.”

“Five,” Darcy started, feeling a thrum of nervousness and excitement in her belly, “four, three, two—one!”

Jane flicked the switch and the machine groaned, loud enough that Darcy winced and instinctively covered her ears. Jane stood firmly in front of the machine, feet apart, watching as light began emanating from the various bulbs.

They both screamed when the bulbs burst, sending shards scattering across the floor. The machine wheezed and Jane turned it off, plucking a shard from the sleeve of her sweater.

“We need more spark plugs and less bulbs,” Jane muttered under her breath, stalking to the stock room. Darcy set down the remote on the work bench and jogged to the supply closet, plucking out a broom and pan. She’d finished sweeping the glass bits away when Jane emerged from the stock room, looking even more livid than when she went in.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing! Literally none! There were six spark plugs yesterday, where the hell did they all go?” Jane glanced suspiciously at the ceiling. “Friday?”

A cool voice drifted from the speakers embedded in the ceiling. “I’m afraid sir took them this morning. They’re still in his laboratory, unused. Shall I inform him you will be needing them?”

Jane opened her mouth, a flurry of curses on the tip of her tongue, but Darcy clamped a hand on her arm and shouted, “I’ll go, Friday.” She gave a stern look at Jane, who was glaring sulkily at the machine. “Remember who pays us, Jane.”

Darcy ignored the colorful response from her best friend as she closed the lab door behind her, biting her lip. Getting spark plugs would be easier if she actually _knew_ where Tony Stark’s laboratory was. She swore the whole damn building was a just a giant question mark.

Friday seemed to be of the same mind, for not a second later Friday’s voice interrupted Darcy’s thoughts. “Mr. Stark’s laboratory is one floor up, Miss Lewis.”

Darcy blinked in surprise. “Oh! Thanks. That’s really helpful.”

There was a pause. Friday replied, “I will need to inform him of your arrival. He does not approve of surprise visits.”

Darcy nodded. That was reasonable, considering the man’s history—or what little she got to know. “That’s fine.”

One floor and six empty labs later, Darcy finally arrived before a set of glass double doors with a giant, opaque _TS_ embossed over them. “Subtle,” Darcy noted dryly. “Er—I guess I should knock? I don’t see him…” Hesitantly, Darcy rapped on the glass door with her knuckles. 

“The door is unlocked, Miss Lewis,” Friday informed her patiently.

“Right,” Darcy bit her lip and pulled back the sleeve of her sweater to grab the metal handle and go inside the lab.

Immediately she was crowded by three different robots, whirring curiously around her as Darcy jumped. “Oh…hey, bots…” They chirped in unison, and Darcy gave the nearest one a little pat. It reached forward with a little claw arm and gave her arm a gentle pat in return. Darcy smiled. “You know where your—” Was saying ‘creator’ too strong a word? “You know where Mr. Stark is?”

The effect was instant; their unintelligible beeps grew loud and uneven as they rapidly rolled away, retreating to wherever it was they were hiding before. Only one paused, and Darcy stared at it curiously as it rolled a little closer, as if contemplating, before sticking out a claw hand and holding out a cup.

“Er—thanks?”

It gave a low, pointed beep before rolling away. She inspected the mug and saw the words _World’s Greatest Dad_ printed in black.

A loud crash came from the back. Darcy wandered closer, mug in hand, and called, “Mr. Stark? It’s Darcy Lewis, Friday said she told you I’d be coming?” Following the sound of indistinct clatter and noise, she came upon a set of stairs leading down to a lower level room. Glancing around unsurely, Darcy went down the stairs. She heard faint music in the background, growing louder as she descended. “I’m…I’m here for the spark plugs you took from Jane Foster’s lab…and there aren’t any more in the building, so…”

She found Tony Stark hunched over the inside of a car, legs propped up against a stool. Cautiously, so as to not startle him, Darcy slowly drew closer. “I think one of your bots wanted me to give you this.” She held out the mug to Tony’s back.

He pushed himself out of the car and glanced at the mug briefly before turning away, uninterested. “Would’ve been better if you handed me a solder than a cup.”

Darcy’s eyes darted to the little station to the right of the car, spotting the solder. When Darcy handed it to him not a second later, Tony stopped dead. He eyed the solder, not taking it. “Lewis, was it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ _Sir_. Did you record that, Friday?” Tony glanced up at the ceiling.

Her cool voice responded, “Yes, Mr. Stark.”

“Good. Lewis, how well can you hold a flashlight? My robots are mad at me and I can’t see anything in this motor.”

“Are you serious?”

“I don’t joke about flashlights in a lab, Lewis. Or angry robots. Look at the mug they gave me. It’s meant to insult.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and snatched the flashlight from the work station, flipping it on and pointing it at the motor.

Tony looked at her like he’d found the holy grail. “Good god. One of you isn’t completely useless.”

“It’s a flashlight, sir.”

“ _And_ a solder. You know you tools, then?”

“Dad was an engineer, taught me some stuff.”

“You interested in learning, Lewis?”

Darcy bit her lip. “I’m just here for spark plugs.”

“And Isaac Newton just wanted a nap before an apple fell on his head and he discovered the concept of gravity. We don’t pick when genius strikes us. Now you look like smart kid, Lewis, and I’m not referring to the flashlight skills. I remember your file. You said you work with Foster?”

“I’m more of an assistant than anything else right now.”

Tony shook his head and finally took the solder from Darcy. “Not anymore. Come look at this motor.”

.

.

.

“So he made you fix the motor?” Jane’s jaw was hanging, spark plugs lying forgotten on the work bench.

Darcy shrugged. “I kind of…fixed everything.”

“The whole car?”

“And the radio.”

“Is that when he made you his intern?”

Darcy shrugged a little helplessly, pressing her lips together uncertainly. “He wants me to shadow him. Jane. I haven’t shadowed anybody since that one-week stint when I considered medical school years ago.”

Jane smiled, but Darcy could see the tightness around her eyes. “He’s a great person to shadow. Really smart. You’ll learn a lot.”

Darcy looked at her oddly as Jane began unwrapping the spark plugs from their packaging. “Wait…you don’t think…Jane. I’m still working with you. I’m only shadowing him in the mornings before I start work here.” Jane looked at her tentatively. Darcy’s jaw dropped. She quickly clasped Jane’s hand. “ _Jane_. You’re my Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen.” At Jane’s nonplussed look, Darcy said simply, “He was _number one_.”

A laugh bubbled in Jane’s throat, and Darcy grinned. “Now, let’s make that portal system.”

.

.

.

She didn’t see him the first week shadowing Tony Stark. Or the second.

She saw him the third week. On her birthday.

Darcy bound inside the lab, humming loudly as she balanced two cups of coffee in her hands and skipped down the stairs leading to Tony’s main station. If she had paid a bit more attention she would have noticed a suspicious lack of angry robots and a leather jacket draped across the table in front of the front doors.

“ _Good mooooor-ning_ , science man! I’ve decided on my gif—oh.”

There, sitting on the work bench, with hair obscuring his face in shadow and a scowl firmly set on his brows, was a man that was not Tony Stark.

Tony Stark, for one, had two arms. He didn’t have a metal plate for a left shoulder. He didn’t sit shirtless on workbenches. And Tony certainly didn’t glare at her like she was the fabled Yeti itself.

“You’re not science man,” Darcy managed to say. The scowl deepened, and his right hand twitched by his side.

Darcy startled when the three robots suddenly rolled up in front of her—the first time she actually saw them working in the lab rather than skulking upstairs just to bother Tony—and Darcy smiled weakly. “Hey guys.”

“Lewis! You’re late.” Darcy almost sighed in relief when she saw Tony emerge from the back room, carrying a hefty-looking metal arm with both hands.

“You ran out of sugar. I had to be creative.” Her eyes shifted uneasily at the silent occupant still sitting on the bench, looking more and more stiff the longer she stood awkwardly nearby. “I can come back later…”

“Nonsense.” Tony set the metal arm down and turned to Darcy. “Lewis, this is Sergeant Barnes. Barnes, Lewis. He just thawed out a few weeks ago.”

Barnes instantly turned his glare to Tony, jutting out a booted foot to kick Tony hard on the thigh. To Tony’s credit, he only stumbled back one step. Clearing his throat, Tony glanced at Darcy. “This is my shadow. I’m showing her how things are done down here. You okay with letting her watch?”

Barnes stared at her. Darcy swallowed hard but refused to look away, fingers curling around the sleeve of her sweater. He nodded once.

“Great. Lewis, hand me the blowtorch.”

Darcy got to work, moving around Tony and Barnes like a skittish deer, silently handing Tony tools when he asked for them. Normally this was when she would run her mouth and ask fifty questions in one breath, but something told her now was not the time.

She knew, of course, who this man was; she would’ve had to be living under a rock to not know who James Barnes was (though she and Jane briefly did huddle in a cave that one week in Croatia), not with the newspapers that littered the streets of New York City. All which had the Winter Soldier’s face plastered on them, from his emergence to the clearance on his name, the reinstatement of his medals of honor and title—all leading to the moment where he now sat in Tony Stark’s lab, getting fitted with a new metal arm.

“Cat got your tongue, Lewis? Where’s my twenty questions?” Tony muttered as he took a measuring tape and wrapped it around the metal plate on Barnes’s shoulder.

Darcy shrugged, looking down at her shoes. “Not much to say I g...are you sure you want to do that?”

Tony, who was attempting to rewire the metal shoulder to the metal arm, paused to glance over his shoulder. “Why shouldn’t I?”

She could feel Barnes watching her. Darcy bit her lip, feeling suddenly very small. Still, she had to say it. “The, um…the power box. In the lithium iodine coating. You didn’t put it on the wires.”

Tony stilled, moving away from Barnes to pick up the little box sitting on the tools tray. “This?” Darcy nodded. “This, Lewis, is archaic. Erase it from your memory. This _here_ is a bionic arm, not general motors. You can’t use lithium iodine in something that’s meant to be self-sustaining.”

Now she really was shrinking on herself. Barnes was still watching her, head tilted. “Oh,” Darcy mumbled, closing her eyes for a second and taking a breath. “Right. Sorry.”

She was surprised when she felt a soft pat on her shoulder. Darcy opened her eyes to see Tony giving her a little encouraging smile. “Don’t be. In any other case, you were right. This is different tech; I don’t expect you to be familiar with it.”

Darcy nodded, but it didn’t stop the shred of embarrassment leaking through her. Normally it wouldn’t bother her; she learned from this kind of stuff. But normal usually didn’t have an audience that looked just about ready to throttle someone.

“And we’re done! Just one final step and you can leave,” Tony put his hands on his hips, looking at the metal arm contemplatively. “You sure you still want the red star?”

Barnes’s eyes narrowed before nodding curtly.

“Okay then. Lewis, it’s your birthday. Push in the final bolt.”

Darcy blinked, looking at Tony in shock—then to Barnes, who looked equally shocked, and a little more than annoyed.

“Oh, no—I couldn’t—”

“Do your hands not work anymore? It’s pushing a bolt. Like a button. Easiest step you’ll ever do in anything. Anyone can push a button. You’re the only woman in the world that can say she helped build the Winter Soldier’s new arm.”

Darcy glanced at Barnes. He didn’t seem too happy but he also would not meet her eyes, let alone protest. “Er—is that alright with you?”

A half-shrug. Darcy glanced at Tony, then at the little bolt at the top of Barnes’s elbow that was sticking out. “Right. I’ll just push it in now.”

Carefully, she held the metal forearm with one hand and hovered her left thumb over the protruding bolt. Darcy glanced up at Barnes, who was watching Darcy’s every movement warily.

Without a second’s hesitation, Darcy thrust the bolt deep into the metal.

Darcy jumped back with his whole arm twitched and electricity jolted up the metal. Barnes let out a grunt, then looked at her murderously.

“I probably should’ve warned you about the jolt,” Tony rubbed the back of his neck. Barnes said nothing, jumping off the table and stalking to the staircase without looking at either of them. He looped his metal arm in the air in one distinctive circle, as if locking it in place, then disappeared.

Darcy stared after him, mouth agape. Slowly, she turned to Tony. “Of all days, you _had_ to schedule him in the day of my birthday?”

.

.

.

“The Winter Soldier? The _actual_ Winter Soldier?” Jane looked both scandalized and intrigued, leaning closer as she popped another fry in her mouth.

Darcy nodded miserably, dropping her head in her hands. “My first contact with him and I electrocuted his ass. He ran out of there the second he was done.”

“I’m sure he was angrier at Tony than you,” Jane reassured. “He didn’t warn Barnes about you shadowing him either. I don’t blame the guy for not liking surprises.”

“Yeah,” Darcy yawned, rubbing her eye. “Yikes, afternoon energy drain. Coffee?”

“No whipped cream this time, please? I hate the mustache I get and then you take pictures of it to send to Thor.”

“That’s exactly why I add the whipped cream, Jane. I thought you knew me.”

Darcy giggled when Jane threw a fry at her as she retreated from the lab, seeking out the communal kitchen on the floor below where the coffee machines were. Talking it out with Jane helped calm her frazzled nerves, and the more she thought about it the less traumatic it seemed. With her luck, she’d never see Barnes again—she’d managed quite well in the three months she and Jane were working at the Tower. And really, he couldn’t blame her for that bit of electricity at the end. That had to have been expected. And that was entirely Tony’s fault too. Coast? Clear as crystal.

She heard laughter coming from the kitchen as she approached it, and the second she saw who was in there, all thoughts of never seeing Barnes again were fucked.

He was laughing with a man she recognized to be Sam Wilson, the guy who introduced himself to Darcy and Jane their first day in the Tower. Wilson and Barnes seemed to be laughing at something out the window, and Darcy quietly moved to the coffee station.

The second she pulled out the coffee pot, though, Barnes’s head snapped in her direction.

It was odd, seeing a laugh freeze on someone’s face, the mirth suddenly becoming artificial, a ghost of what it was just seconds ago. It was even odder to see several things flit across Barnes’s eyes at once—recognition, surprise, curiosity, annoyance.

An eerily large amount of annoyance.

“Oh, hey,” Darcy forced a smile. “Just making some coffee.”

Sam glanced at Barnes, then to Darcy. “Name’s Sam. You’re Foster’s kid, right?”

“Her assistant.” Darcy’s eyes slid back to Barnes. “Hey, about—about earlier, sorry about the electric jolt, I didn’t know…” The words died on her lips when Barnes didn’t spare her a single glance as he strode out the kitchen, leaving Sam and Darcy alone.

“Real social butterfly, that one,” Sam said dryly. “Don’t take it personally. Just a part of who he is. He’s better than before, to be honest. Him leaving like that is a compliment.”

Darcy turned to watch the coffee brew, unconvinced.

.

.

.

Darcy hadn’t been sure, not at first. She suspected she caught the Stark syndrome and was overthinking the small (and she meant microscopic level small) interactions Darcy had with Barnes.

But there were only so many times Darcy could walk in a room and have Barnes stand up and walk right out before it became painfully clear: the Winter Soldier could not stand her.

Whether it was in an elevator and getting off the very next floor, in the kitchen, in the communal living space. Whether she was with Jane or he was with Sam or Cap, whether she stopped by the gym to get her treadmill on and he was sparring with Romanov, the result was always the same. Stare, glare, retreat.

Barnes the Broody would not have anything to do with Darcy Lewis.

And that was just _fine._ She was fucking dandy without him either. She couldn’t win them all, and Bucky Barnes was an unfortunate addition to the list of people who inevitably disliked her. Though she wished she knew _why_ ; as far as she knew Darcy hadn’t actually done anything to piss the man off. But if he was going to be a child about it, then Darcy had no business having anything to do with him.

.

.

.

Theory and practice were, unfortunately for Darcy, very different.

.

.

.

“Shit!” Darcy hissed as a small part of the lever on Jane’s machine burst into flame. “Shit, shit, shit!”

Instinctively she grabbed the nearest thing which turned out to be a notebook, an utterly useless fuel to the fire. Tucking the remote she’d been fiddling with in her pocket, Darcy glanced around. “Towel, towel, towel…” Luckily for Darcy these little fires were common in Jane’s laboratory—theoretical astrophysics was a flighty pursuit, and working with Jane for four years taught both of them that Jane’s worked involved an unfortunate streak of pyrotechnics.

But no towel was in sight and Darcy groaned, running to the fire extinguisher. Jane _hated_ the fire extinguisher. It gummed up the works of machinery, and she knew Darcy and Jane would have to spend at least two hours cleaning the aftermath.

She was just fiddling with the nozzle when she heard thundering footsteps outside the lab, and shrieked when she turned to see a solid wall of muscle pushing her aside and yanking the fire extinguisher from her hands.

The air filled with a jet of air and foam or whatever the hell fire extinguishers had inside them. Darcy coughed as smoke filled the air, eyes watering.

Wiping her glasses, she saw James Barnes glaring down at her.

“Are you an idiot?”

Darcy’s jaw dropped. His first words. The first time she ever heard the man speak, and he was questioning her intelligence?

Yes, he was. Barnes dropped the fire extinguisher carelessly, eyes fixed on Darcy. “Did you think staring at the goddamn fire would put it out? Where’s your director? Why are you even here alone?”

If she cared to think on it at that moment, she would have realized that that was more words than she ever heard Barnes say in a lifetime. But she did not care, and with each punctuated insult Darcy felt herself stand taller, anger burning in her chest.  

Darcy held her hand up. “I’m sorry, but? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Bucky stopped short. “What?”

“You heard me. You come in here and start berating _me?_ I was doing just fine, dude. I didn’t need you to come in here and save me Terminator-style.”

Barnes’s eyes narrowed. “You would’ve burned the entire laboratory.”

“I was literally holding the fire extinguisher.”

The smoke continued to rise from the machine, a slow hissing coming from inside until it erupted into a low whine.

“—think you can just walk in here, why are you even down this floor—”

 The smoke curled into a cloud around Jane’s machine, the air around it crackling as it grew hotter and hotter.

“—you’re lucky I was even down here—”

“—you’re lucky I don’t have a wrench near me—”

A loud explosion came from the machine and Barnes and Darcy jumped. Darcy hardly had time to say “what the—” before they were bodily thrown back, a roaring black hole spawning before them.

The papers on the work tables whipped around them before hurtling inside the yawning black expanse where the machine once stood; Darcy felt the air getting sucked from her lungs and turned to look at Barnes, eyes blown wide with panic, and felt the faintest shred of comfort to see the look mirrored in his eyes.

The feeling did not last, for the very next second they were getting dragged in, sliding across the floor towards the black hole. Darcy’s hands desperately searched for purchase on the floor, nails scraping on the worn tile, but found only Bucky’s hand to grab onto as he slid across the floor alongside her. He was digging his metal hand hard into the floor with a loud growl, and chunks of it came apart under his fingers but it could not stop their path—the sound of their shouts died as both of them were thrown inside the small black hole.

.

.

.

The first thing she felt was a heavy weight crushing her chest.

The weight was warm and smelled of leather and metal. She wanted to move, to push off the thing that was making breathing difficult, but Darcy’s muscles felt like they’d been battered and beaten and she only managed the slightest shrug, whimpering in pain.

Her eyes were so dry she struggled with prying them opening more than a crack. Immediately her irises were assaulted with bright light and she jammed them closed, cringing.

Next to her ear, she heard a low groan.

Darcy forced her eyes open and saw tufts of long, dark hair spilling over her shoulder and tickling her neck. Her senses zeroed on that, now noticing the warm breath puffing on her neck, the wetness on her shoulder, and the body that was sprawled over hers. It clicked.

Fire.

Bucky Barnes.

Black hole.

Darcy lifted her hand and weakly pushed against his shoulder. “Barnes.” Another nudge, this time harder. “Barnes, _get off_.” She glanced to her side and realized they were holding hands. An image of her scrambling for something to grab onto as she was dragged to the black hole surfaced in her mind. She’d grabbed Barnes’s hand and neither of them had let go, not even now.

“Wakey, wakey,” Darcy squeezed his hand, wishfully hoping it was a death grip but knew it was little more than a feeble squeeze.

She felt him stiffen. Ah, finally awake. Darcy could feel his breath coming out in short pants, clearly remembering the last few…minutes? Hours? Darcy had no idea how long ago it was they’d been sucked into the black hole.

He was shifting a little, assessing himself just as Darcy had. He flexed his left fingers which, up until that very moment, Darcy had not realized where they were resting on Darcy’s body. She let out a yelp when they flexed gingerly on her right boob.

Like Thor when he regained his power in Puente Antiguo, energy rushed through Darcy’s body and she slapped his hand away, then gave a massive shove on his shoulders. Barnes rolled off of her with another grunt and Darcy pushed herself up to sit.

Surrounding them was grass. Acres and acres of grass.

The grass was _purple._

“Holy shit.” Darcy swallowed thickly. Barnes was now on high alert and wringing out his hands, picking out debris from his metal arm as he took stock of their surroundings. Darcy glanced down at her cardigan and saw a giant wet spot on her shoulder. She grimaced. “Ugh, gross dude. You drooled on me.” She shifted her cardigan to look at the wet patch. “A solid half hour drool, too. Guess I know how long we’ve been out, then.”

She looked at Barnes and froze. His eyes were wide and shifting back and forth, a look of panic etched on his face. He stumbled to his feet and turned in a circle, taking in everything around them, and Darcy knew he was having sensory and visual overload.

“Hey,” Darcy scrambled to her feet but her legs wobbled and sent her crashing to her knees. Darcy gritted her teeth and tried again, a little more slowly, and was proud she only stumbled a little this time. Barnes was still looking around wildly, breath coming short. Darcy stopped in front of him and repeated, “Hey. Barnes. Look at me.”

His eyes skipped over her, the same way he was looking at everything else. Darcy bit her lip, glancing at his hands. Hesitantly she reached forward and took his hands into hers, squeezing tightly. “Barnes. Barnes, look at me. Hey.” Nothing. She tried again. “Bucky.”

That made him stop. His eyes snapped to hers, as if realizing for the first time that she was there at all. “Look at me. Breathe in slowly…” He watched her as she took a slow breath, inhale, exhale, but made no move to follow. He seemed to have stopped breathing altogether. “Come on, I’m not asking for much. Just breathe with me.”

She did it again, breathing slowly, and Bucky finally took a deep, shuddering breath. Darcy’s lips twitched upwards. “Good. Now out…”

He closed his eyes as he exhaled, their hands clasped tightly. She watched him breathe slowly until the stiffness in his shoulders relaxed, the breath coming out easily rather than in shudders. Slowly he opened his eyes and blinked down at her.

She followed his gaze as they focused on their hands twined together. He dropped them quickly, as if scalded, and took a step back. Barnes started looking around again but this time without the mark of panic. No, Darcy recognized this look—it was the same one she’d been seeing the past few weeks; the how-fast-can-I-get-away-from-her look. Darcy glared and turned away.

To her right she saw a stretch of rolling hills, landscaped with purple grass and oddly shaped rocks that, when inspected closely, were a deep burgundy color. Distantly Darcy could hear a familiar crash and flow, turning to her left. She inhaled sharply and crept forward, past Barnes, and stopped just short of a few jutting rocks.

A cliff. They’d crash-landed on the edge of a very tall cliff.

“God,” Darcy breathed, her voice unnaturally high. The water was thankfully crystal blue, but it was the long stretch of ocean that alarmed her.

“I do not recognize this place.”

Darcy turned her eyes away from the ocean to Barnes. His arms were crossed, leather jacket stretched tight over his shoulders. Despite getting thrown into a black hole and crashing on a purple plain, Darcy was impressed at their general lack of injury.

Darcy crossed her arms. “That’s because we’re not on Earth anymore. Obviously.” At Barnes’s incredulous look, Darcy waved her hand over their surroundings. “Do you remember having purple grass back home? Or, I don’t know—” Darcy squinted at the sky, which was tinged a light pink, “a sky with four moons? This is totally an alien planet. Jane’s machine worked.”

Darcy stopped, her eyes widening. “Jane’s machine worked.” She turned back to Barnes, who was still staring at her like she’d grown three heads, a grin spreading on her face until she was beaming. “Jane’s machine worked! Oh my god! We just traveled a billion light years in the span of seconds and we didn’t explode! The portal system—it worked—that black hole—wait.” Darcy frowned. “How could it have worked? It caught fire. And it wasn’t even on.”

Barnes didn’t respond. Darcy began pacing. “Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me the fire was the catalyst? But there’s…oh, no we never used fire, we were using electricity…maybe that overrode the on-switch…”

“Is there a way back?”

Darcy glanced at Barnes. His hands were clenched in loose fists, a hard look in his eyes. She could see the worry behind them. “Uh…a way back…”

Barnes rolled his eyes and started walking away, shaking the hair away from his eyes. The familiar uneasy feeling bloomed in her stomach, the feeling of smallness whenever Barnes looked at her like she was worth less than an amoeba. “For god’s sake,” Darcy muttered under her breath, shaking her head. This was no time to let her insecurity around Barnes get the best of her. She needed to _think_.

Darcy gasped. The remote! She checked her pockets wildly, remembering tucking it in one of them just before everything had fallen to shit. She glanced up at Bucky, who was now several meters away from her. “Wait! Barnes! I remember! There’s a way back, we just need to find the remote, it’s got to be here somewhere—”

He glanced behind his shoulder just as his foot took one last step, and Darcy heard a resounding, distinct _crunch_.

“No. No, no, nononono—” Darcy sprinted to Barnes, who was now looking curiously at the thing he had stepped on with is foot hovering above the ground. Darcy saw a little glint of red reflecting in the rubble, and she dropped to her knees. Barnes took a step back, watching as she whimpered at the small pile of metal.

She picked up a piece of the cracked red button and glared up at him. “You broke the remote!”

He stared at her impassively. “And?”

“And this was our way back! The red button, that’s all I had to push and we’d be back in Jane’s lab, but you crushed our ticket home with your giant sasquatch foot!”

Barnes’s eyes hardened. “We’ll find another way, then.”

Darcy gaped. “You don’t even care. I thought you of all people would want the fastest way back, so you can go back to ignoring I exist. Yeah, that’s right, I said it.”

She saw the exact moment Barnes lost the last of his patience. With a vindictive curl of his upper lip, Barnes took a step forward. His boot came down hard on the remains of the remote, twisting his heel back and forth, watching in satisfaction as Darcy gaped and let out a loud shriek. “ _Motherfucker!_ ”

With a little smirk, Bucky turned around and began walking away.

“Oh, you’re _so_ fucking dead,” Darcy growled, catching up with him. “The second we’re back? You watch yourself.”

Barnes didn’t bother looking at her. “Join the damn club.”

.

.

.

Jane rewatched the footage over and over until her eyes burned. Barnes and Darcy stood arguing as her machine began smoking, and were thrown back when the black hole erupted. She stared as Bucky and Darcy grappled on the floor and finally, their hands held tightly, were sucked inside the black hole. Tony and Vision stood behind her, watching silently.

“They just…got pulled in.” Jane said faintly when the surveillance feed flickered out.

Tony crossed his arms. “Lewis has the remote. We all saw her put it in her pocket,” Tony noted, all trace of humor gone.

Jane shook her head. “She would’ve used it by now. She knows what to do if something like that happened. It’s been three hours, Stark. Something went wrong.”

“You’re certain this is not a space-time device?” Vision asked her quietly.

“Absolutely not. Interplanetary transportation only. Traveling time is not my field of study.”

“Wherever she is, she’s okay. She’s a bright girl. And she has the Winter Soldier with her.” Tony nodded, as if trying to convince himself to believe his own words. “They’ll figure something out.”

.

.

.

“You’re going the wrong way.”

“How could you possibly know what the right way is?”

Darcy kicked a pebble with extra force, face sullen. They’d been walking for three hours and came upon a little gravel path made of red stones. They’d been following it ever since, but they were as close to help as Darcy was to sleeping in her own bed tonight.

Barnes waited before replying, probably summoning whatever self-control he had in his two hundred pounds of pure muscle and glares. “The sun is setting on the other side. That means true north is to our left, not right.”

“For all we know the sun doesn’t rise in the east. But good try.” Darcy rubbed her shoulder, wincing when she felt a sharp sting. She rolled her shoulder, wriggling out her arm. “You think we’ll find ice around here?”

Barnes glanced back at her. He slowed, waiting for Darcy to catch up with him. Darcy frowned when his eyes flickered back and forth between her shoulder and her face, looking at her with deep suspicion. “What?” Darcy asked, impatient.

Darcy watched as Barnes started rubbing his hands together rapidly, then glanced at Darcy to see if she would stop him. When she continued to stare at him silently, he reach forward with his metal hand and clamped it over the sore part of her shoulder.

Darcy inhaled sharply, eyes darting up to Barnes’s face. The metal hand was warm. No, it was warm enough to be just shy of uncomfortable, but Darcy couldn’t stop the little sigh that escaped her lips when she felt the knot of muscles under his hand loosen, a pleasant warmth spreading along her skin as he moved his fingers in slow, hard circles. He wouldn’t meet her eyes once he stepped away, and started down the gravel path again.

Darcy, still rubbing her shoulder, fell in step with him. “Not that I don’t appreciate the Mr. Miyagi move, but how did you do that? Is there a heat generator on your palm?”

Barnes ducked his head. Then, a quiet, “Yes.”

“Huh.” Darcy nodded, peering up at him. “Good. That’s…cool.”

He stiffened next to her, and the familiar scowl returned as he increased his stride.

Darcy swallowed a groan of frustration. She muttered under her breath, “Great. Barnes the Broody is back.”

Barnes’s fingers twitched. He heard her.

Darcy smiled.

.

.

.

It took another hour before Darcy spotted the village.

“Barnes! Holy shit, look down there!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the edge of the hill. “Civilization!” Darcy went to move but Barnes’s hand gripped her arm tightly, jerking her back towards him. The look he was giving her made Darcy shiver.

“This is an alien planet. They may be hostile. They might take one look at us and think _we’re_ hostile and kill us. It’s not safe.”

“Then why have we been walking for four hours if we don’t plan on finding help?” Darcy hissed. Barnes set his mouth in a hard line. “Look, we’ll recon. See if they’re friendly and if their technology could crisp us up like bacon. But we can’t just stay put and hope somehow we’ll get back home.”

Barnes’s jaw ticked. Slowly, he let go of her arm.

“Fine,” he said quietly. “But you follow exactly what I tell you. I’ll go down first—”

“OI! No dawdlin’ on the path, yer holdin’ up the crowd!”

Barnes whirled around and shoved Darcy behind him, his hand reaching for the empty holster at his belt. He stumbled a little when a small group of people—people with pink skin and vivid red hair hurried past them, all hefting bags and suitcases.

One of them, looking to be in his adolescence, stared at Barnes and Darcy before sneering. “Ship’s over there, yeh dingbat.” He snorted and elbowed his friend, both of them shaking their heads.

Darcy swallowed thickly, watching the crowd make their way down the hill and towards the little village. “So…friendly planet. Friendly aliens. Did they sound a bit...like, west? West Country? But not really?”

Barnes nodded slowly, eyes wide with surprise. “Yeah.” He glanced down, realizing he was still gripping her arm tightly, and let go immediately. “Sorry, Lewis.”

Darcy smiled a little. “Hey, you just tried saving me from some sassy aliens. You can call me Darcy.”

She might’ve imagined the small smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. “Bucky.” His face turned serious. “I think I heard something about a ship.”

.

.

.

“No money, no intergalactic transportation,” the woman behind the desk repeated, her tone bored to the teeth.

“But you don’t understand, we got _lost_ , we were sucked in a black hole—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Policy is policy. Thirty credits or no ride.”

Bucky clenched his fists beside her. Darcy turned back to the lady at the desk. “I can give you two dollars and a stick of gum.”

The lady blinked, then shouted, “Next!”

Darcy grumbled under her breath as they stepped back outside, the waning sun casting shadows along the plaza. “How’re we going to get credit sticks? Should we find a money exchange or something? Maybe two earth dollars are worth fifty million credits here.”

Bucky had been silent throughout the walk to the station and during Darcy’s argument with the receptionist, and now he was flexing his fingers in a way that made Darcy think he was coming up with a plan.

“You’re coming up with a plan, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

Bucky clenched his jaw, then glanced at the massive air ship that was stationed behind the plaza. “We’re breaking in.”

“Br—Bucky, no. I can’t add petty crime to the list of things I did not want to do today.”

Bucky glared at her. “That ship’s flying out in five minutes. You got a better idea?”

Before Darcy could respond, Bucky’s eyes darted behind Darcy. Frowning, Darcy turned around, jumping a little when she saw a stout old woman hovering behind her, her skin bright pink and wearing a dazzling smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a slight, friendly wince. “I couldn’t help overhear inside, and it’s an awful shame for that woman to turn you away like that.”

“What do you want?” Bucky narrowed his eyes.

“Oh! Well, seeing you two kids reminds me of my husband when we were young—he’s waiting in the craft parked right there, see him waving?” Darcy and Bucky followed where the woman pointed, and saw a man waving cheerfully inside a hovercraft. Darcy waved back. Bucky’s glower deepened.

“It’s just mighty fine seeing two young outworlders following their hearts and running off together, and to be held back just for thirty credits?” She clicked her tongue. At that exact moment, the engines of the intergalactic ship roared to life. Bucky watched wistfully as it flew high in the air, disappearing within seconds.

“Running off…” Darcy trailed. Oh. _Oh_. “Yes! Yes, it’s been hard, but this one,” Darcy reached around and wrapped both her arms around Bucky’s, “this guy keeps me going. It all feels worth it.” When Bucky stiffened, Darcy muttered, “Just play along.” Bucky was still for a moment, but then one hand slowly came up to rest atop hers. His lips twisted in the world’s worst smile.

“As it should, as it should,” the kindly woman smiled. “So—here. This should get you where you need.” The woman held out a card. Darcy gawked.

“Oh—oh my god, that’s really—really generous of you. That’s so kind. Don’t you think so, sugar?” Darcy looked up at him with a wide smile.

Bucky stared at the card distrustfully. “A little to kind.” Darcy could almost hear the unspoken _so what’s your motive?_ , but was grateful when he kept silent and took the card from the lady. “Thank you.”

The woman brightened, blushing scarlet. “Oh, think nothing of it! Now the next ship will be tomorrow, so just get on it then, alright?”

Darcy felt like she’d been punched in the gut. “T...tomorrow?” Darcy looked at Bucky uncertainly.

The woman glanced unsurely between the two. “You have a place to stay tonight, right?”

.

.

.

“Well. This is cozy.”

Darcy made a face. “Just be glad she’s letting us stay in her house.”

The room was tiny. Tinier than Darcy’s old dorm in college. In the four corners of the room there was a bed, a door to the bathroom, a squashed-looking chair, and the exit.

Bucky immediately set about disarming himself. Within seconds the floor was rife with throwing stars and little devices she wasn’t entirely sure what they were, but noticed that a gun was noticeably missing when he unhooked the holster from his belt. She watched as he started scanning the room, moving the furniture this way and that, stalking to the bathroom and hearing the taps run before coming back into the room. “Room is safe. We should get some rest.” He stripped off the jacket and shoes and immediately collapsed on the bed.

Darcy’s mouth dropped. “Hold on there, tiger. There’s no way I’m sleeping in the same bed.”

Bucky, whose arm was thrown over his eyes, lifted it slightly to peer at her with one eye. “But this is our honeymoon after all…sugar.”

Darcy scowled, ripping off her cardigan and rubbing her shoulder gingerly. “Well, _honey_ , last I checked there’s plenty of room down here by the nightstand.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “That’s good. Here’s an extra pillow.”

Darcy grit her teeth and snatched a pillow from the bed. “Fine. That’s just fine with me.”

Darcy strode to the bathroom and slammed the door. Other world or not, Darcy was relieved to see the facilities were still the same; sink, tub, toilet, mirror. Darcy stared at her reflection and cringed when she saw just how gnarled her hair had gotten throughout the day. The thin cotton dress was rumpled, her leggings torn a bit, and her shoulder still ached, probably from when she crashed on this planet with Bucky on top of her.

Bucky. Just the thought made her head hurt and a scowl replaced her frown. What the hell was his problem? Why was he constantly hot and cold around her, as if he was trying to figure out whether or not he wanted to flatten her like a gnat on a windshield? She tried again to remember something, _anything_ that might’ve set him off about her, but came up blank.

“His loss,” Darcy mumbled angrily, and with jerky movements she quickly stripped out of her clothes. She turned the knob on the shower and stepped in, feeling instant relief at the hot water warming up her skin, loosening the stiff muscles of her back.

She was just starting to scrub her face when through the corner of her eye, she caught something dark at the end of the drain. Squinting, Darcy leaned in closer.

“OH MY GOD!”

Darcy screamed, throwing back the curtain and jumping out of the tub. “Giant! Slug! Holy _shit_ —” The words died in her throat when the next second the door was thrown open and Bucky stood with a knife in hand, eyes blown wide with alarm.

“Bucky what the hell!” Darcy wrapped an arm across her chest and hunched over, trying to cover herself. She reached for a towel and Bucky’s eyes traced the movement all the way to where she stood. A scarlet blush bloomed on across his face.

Towel firmly wrapped, Darcy snapped, “What’re you doing, get out! Get out! You don’t just barge in when someone’s showering!”

“You screamed,” Bucky said, not looking at her. The knife was still poised ready.

“Yeah because there’s a giant ass slug in the tub, but that’s no reason— _oh my god it got out!_ ” Darcy let out a short scream and darted behind Bucky then grabbed his shoulders, both hiding and pushing him forward. “I take it back! Kill it, kill it, kill it! Oh my god it’s going to kill us first! Bucky do something!”

Bucky stared at the slug for a moment before taking one step and plunging the knife through it.

Darcy felt nauseous. “Is it dead?”

Bucky considered this seriously. “Let me check.”

Darcy covered her face with her hands. She heard a quiet, “It’s dead.” Then, “Want me to get it out of here?”

“Please, god, yes,” Darcy mumbled under her hands. She felt Bucky’s hand brush her shoulder and he guided her to the bed, sitting her down. He came back to the bed two minutes later. “It’s gone.”

Darcy sighed shakily, relief written on her face. “You’re a saint.” Bucky’s lips twitched again, but didn’t reply. “Can you…can you check the rest of the bathroom?” He nodded curtly and went back in to check, but emerged back a minute later with a shrug. “It’s clear. You can finish your shower.” She didn’t miss the way his eyes flickered down to the towel still wrapped around her, hiked up high on her thighs with her sitting on the bed, before coming back up to her eyes. Darcy pressed her lips together and nodded, not meeting his gaze as she darted to the bathroom.

The shower was short and hasty. Darcy’s skin crawled through the entire five minutes, feeling as if any second she’d see another alien bug and have it slide up her leg. She brushed her hair out quickly and donned her underclothes before putting on the bathrobe hanging on the rail.

Bucky gave a half-nod when Darcy came out. She smiled, a little awkwardly. “Shower’s free.”

He wasn’t in there for more than five minutes himself, and she barely got the last of the tangles out of her hair before Bucky came out of the bathroom, steam billowing behind him. He also opted for the bathrobe, his clothes bundled tightly in his hands.

He shuffled awkwardly to the other side of the bed. Darcy turned to face him.

“Hey…I’m still a bit…freaked out by the alien bug thing and I don’t think I can handle sleeping on the floor. Can I…?” Darcy glanced down at the bed, then back to him.

Bucky blinked. “Yes. Of course.”

Darcy bit her lip. “Thanks.”

Darcy turned off the light and grabbed the pillow off the floor, fluffing it a bit before settling down. Bucky was trying his best not to touch her, shrinking in on himself—which was ridiculous, because the man was a wall of muscle and no amount of slouching would change that.

“Relax. I don’t have cooties,” Darcy nudged him with her elbow. He didn’t exactly loosen up, but he did unfurl himself a bit. Darcy sighed quietly, feeling the weight of the day finally pressing down on her. She closed her eyes. “Look, I know you don’t like me but by tomorrow we should be on our way back to Earth, and then I’ll be out of your hair forever. It’s just one night.”

Bucky didn’t say anything for a long time. Her eyes were just starting to flutter shut when she heard him say quietly, “I don’t…I like you just fine.”

Darcy turned her head towards Bucky. She could only make out the outline of his face in the dim moonlight. “You don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not lying.” Darcy looked at him skeptically, and he turned his head to look at her. “I’m not lying,” Bucky repeated forcefully.

“Then why do you run away every time you see me? I noticed, okay. It’s kind of hard when up until today you couldn’t stand the sight of me.” Darcy’s voice wavered a little, and she bit her lip. Bucky turned away, pressing a hand over his eyes. He exhaled slowly.

“I’m just…” He curled his hand into a fist over his forehead. “I wasn’t leaving because of you. Not really. It was just…whenever I saw you, I wanted to talk.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Darcy gave him a dry look. “So naturally the solution was to hightail out of there.”

She could see Bucky press his lips together, frustrated. “I’m shit at talking. Got frustrated and left before I could do something stupid. Made me feel stupid I couldn’t even say a word to you, when you hadn’t done anything to deserve me walking like that.”

Darcy stared at him, her chest feeling light. He’d been…nervous? Around _her_? “That’s ridiculous. I’m nobody worth getting worked up about. Seriously, you could’ve said ‘one potato two potato’ and it would’ve been a great ice breaker.”

A soft laugh huffed out of Bucky. Darcy smiled. “You’re also a bit of an annoying shit. And so am I, as we all saw today. Seriously, it’s fine. And we’re talking now, right? Jane usually can’t shut me up. We balance out just fine.”

Bucky nodded, and they stayed silent for several minutes.

Naturally that was an opportune moment for Darcy’s stomach to make a loud, sad grumble.

She cringed, sneaking a look at Bucky. He was staring at the ceiling but from the way his eyebrows rose, she knew he’d heard it.

“We haven’t eaten all day,” Bucky said, somewhat awkardly. And seemed to be the only thing he was willing to say.

Darcy cleared her throat. “Would you…wanna sneak down and see what kind, Mrs. Egra has stocked?”

Bucky shrugged and looked at her. Darcy threw off the covers and slid off the bed. “You’re probably hungry too. Let’s raid the fridge.”

The fridge was actually a fluorescent room with food stacked on shelves, and there did not seem to be any actual refrigerating action happening along any of the shelves; the room wasn’t even the slightest bit cold. “I guess their technology is more advanced even in keeping food from spoiling,” Darcy wondered out loud.

“It’s the light,” Bucky noted, moving his metal fingers through the hazy purplish white light that each shelf had beaming down in it. “I can’t describe it. But it feels preservative.”

Darcy nodded, hiking up a brow in interest. “I don’t know what half this stuff is. What’s ‘Akkarad meat’?” Darcy squinted at the label. “You think it tastes like chicken?”

Bucky shrugged. “Maybe.”

Darcy picked up the canister and two other boxes that looked like they _might_ be some kind of biscuit. Bucky picked out a harmless-looking loaf and paused at the end of a shelf. “Huh.”

Darcy wandered towards him and peered over his shoulder. “That bottle is a universal code for alcohol, isn’t it.”

“Looks like it.”

Darcy pursed her lips, glancing behind her shoulder. “She’s got like, fifty cases of these. You think she’ll miss one?”

.

.

.

They say the super serum Steve Rogers was administered during World War II prevented the man from getting drunk. His liver processed and expelled the alcohol too rapidly for even the slightest effect of the alcohol to overcome him.

They also say the Winter Soldier was given a nearly identical super serum, though altered and in some ways prototypical, but alcohol also did not affect him and his lightning fast digestive system.

But after finishing the fourth beer, Bucky Barnes stared at his fingertips in surprise. “The alcohol,” he said faintly, in both horror and surprise. “I think I feel something. A tingle.” He looked at Darcy with an alarmed frown. “I think it’s affecting me.”

Darcy, who was still on her first beer, cackled. “Well somebody get me a glass…because I just found myself a tall. Drink. Of water.” Suddenly she went pale, and stumbled to the bathroom. Bucky winced when he heard her cough loudly.

“Oh no,” he heard her moan miserably, and Bucky sat up. “There’s a slug in the toilet.”

.

.

.

The first thing she felt was something warm on her chest and her back.

It was soft. And snuggly. She felt utterly and completely content, the pillow soft and her legs tangled messily in the sheets, and something warm was there too. She wiggled her shoulders a bit before nuzzling back against the warmth surrounding her.

When the warmth on her chest squeezed gently, Darcy’s eyes flew open.

Hand. Hand on chest. Hand on chest inside robe, palming the very same boob that had been gripped yesterday. A bare knee was nudged between her legs and the warmth that was enveloping her was actually Bucky Barnes, sleeping soundly behind her—or rather, against her.

She tried to ignore that this was utterly _comfortable_. She tried ignoring the relish she felt in shifting just so against Bucky’s chest that was pressed securely against her back; the fact that his leg was warm against hers, skin on skin thanks to their bathrobes. She tried remembering when the last time she had woken this way, soft and happy and warm.

Darcy froze when the hand on her chest shifted again, running a thumb against the fabric of her bra and tickling her side boob. Yeah, no. This just wouldn’t do.

Slowly, she extracted the hand currently inside the front of her robe and Bucky shifted, wrapping his arm around her stomach and pulling her close against his chest, nuzzling her neck as his leg tangled further between hers. Darcy closed her eyes and pursed her lips—god help her, but that felt good. Really, tingly, good.

Darcy checked the window. It was still dark. She checked everything else, remember faintly that she had indeed gotten a little drunk from the alien beer and prayed she didn’t have drunk sex with Bucky Barnes and then not remember, and sighed in relief. Sleep; this was just sleep.

She closed her eyes and drifted back asleep.

.

.

.

When she awoke again the sun was in her eyes and the bed was empty. Bucky was pulling on his boots, the weapons that had been laid out on the floor now gone. “Morning,” she said, her voice still light with sleep.

“Morning.” Bucky avoided her eyes. Ah. He definitely woke up the way she had earlier, then.

“What time is it?” she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

“Clock says seven. We got two hours to kill before the ship comes.”

Darcy nodded and slipped out of bed. She dressed quickly, and within ten minutes Bucky and Darcy were out the door and paying their thanks to the kind Mrs. Egra who basically saved their sorry asses in the hellscape that was the planet Tartaret.

As they walked to the station, Darcy was struck with an idea. Quickly she whipped out her phone and, in vain hope, checked the signal. Nonexistent. _Worth a try_ , she thought, but then moved onto the real task: the camera.

Bucky said nothing the first few minutes, watching her silently as she stopped every few feet to bend down and take a photo of a rock. She would touch it too, rub it between her fingers and then type quickly on her phone. Finally after fifteen minutes of this, Bucky asked, “What are you doing?”

Darcy took another picture. “We’re on another planet billions of lightyears away from Earth. Jane would kill me if I didn’t catalogue any of this.”

Bucky quirked a brow. “She the one who built the machine that got us here?”

“That would be her,” Darcy nodded. “She’s a genius, you know.”

“You must be too, then,” Bucky observed.

Darcy snorted. “Nah, far from it. I just do the hand-on stuff. I’m pretty terrible at astrophysics.”

“Doesn’t mean you ain’t smart, doll,” Bucky shrugged, and Darcy stared up at him.

“Is that right?” A slow grin crept on Darcy’s face. The longer she talked to him the more his manner of speech changed; it rolled off his tongue easier, a little slower, with an accent that heavily suggested Brooklyn. Darcy rather liked it.

She hadn’t even realized she started humming until Bucky asked her, “What’s that you’re singing?”

Darcy startled, caught off-guard. “Oh! Er, nothing, really. Just something that you reminded me of, not that it’ll make much sense why.”

Bucky hid a smile. “I think I can keep up if you explain.”

Darcy chewed on her lower lip. “The way you’ve been talking lately. Just reminded me of simpler times—maybe they _were_ simpler times, in some ways.” Darcy shook her head. “It’s this old sixties song, you know— _sugar pie, honey bunch, you know that I love you_ —classic stuff. I’ll make you a playlist when we get back.”

Bucky ducked his head, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Steve tried playing me some stuff. Music’s changed a lot since I’ve been gone.”

“Oh, definitely. But that’s how life is, right? Things change every day. Yesterday morning we were barely civil to each other, now we’re best pals.” She grinned up at him. “Life’s funny that way, don’t you think?”

Bucky looked down at her, eyes warm and a little smile playing on his lips. “Yeah…funny that way.”

.

.

.

“Darcy. Stay close to me.”

Darcy inhaled sharply as the indistinct shouting grew louder. “Christ on a cracker. I did _not_ sign up for space thugs when I boarded this metal death trap.”

Bucky forced her chin up and held her gaze. “When I say run, you run.” His hand threaded through hers tightly. “Don’t let go.”

“I won’t,” Darcy promised, fear making her hands shake. Bucky squeezed tightly.

A loud bang came from the cockpit and more shouting erupted. The passengers around them shifted nervously. Bucky’s head whipped to the side, listening.

“Run!”

Darcy bolted. Their hands were clasped tightly as they sprinted to the back of the ship. Adrenaline rushed through her as her breath came out in short pants, and Darcy reaffirmed her grip on Bucky’s hand.

Suddenly something clamped around their feet and they tumbled down to the floor.

“Well, well, well,” a man strolled up before them, tilting his head. His face was entirely blue. “What do we have here?” He nudged his boot against Darcy’s face and Bucky snarled, breaking the bond at his feet with his metal hand and used the same hand to clamp around the blue man’s neck.

“You don’t touch her.” Bucky’s hair fell over his eyes as he bared his teeth. He barely noticed when an arrow, levitating on its own merit, pressed against his throat.

“Ah, ah,” the blue man grinned. “Better rethink that move, son. That arrow there has—”

Suddenly the blue man stopped, eyes rolled back and his body convulsing, crumpling to the ground. The arrow clattered to the floor.

Bucky watched Darcy discharge the taser outstretched in her hand, panting hard, and pocketed it. Bucky gave her a wondrous look.

“How long have you had that?” he asked curiously, stepping over the blue man’s body. With one hard tug he broke the bindings at her feet.

“Swiped it from his belt,” Darcy said shakily, taking Bucky’s hands and letting him pull her up to her feet. “That was really badass what you did back there.”

“I had an arrow to my neck. You’re the one who brought him down.” Bucky tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Darcy beamed.

A half hour later they were rescued by a raccoon, a tree, a tattooed man and a green woman, and a guy who really liked his 1970s rock music.

“Can I have his arm?” the raccoon asked the tree, staring at Bucky’s cybernetic arm like a cat to a canary. Darcy wrapped her arms around it protectively, and Bucky glanced down at her.

“I am Groot,” the tree shook his head in solemn disapproval.

But the man, Peter Quill they found out later, stopped before Bucky and Darcy, his face ashen. “Are you…are you two _human?_ ”

.

.

.

Jane was having a very long day.

It took seven hours to build another remote and calibrate it to the machine, with the help of Tony Stark of course, because time was of the essence. Then it was hours of protocol and safety precautions, testing combustion reactions, and then finally recreating the black hole that had taken Darcy and Bucky.

Jane didn’t even have time to savor the fact that, now thanks to herself and Darcy, instant light speed intergalactic travel was possible. No, she was far too worried to savor that discovery.

So she crashed on a purple planet with four moons. The air tasted salty always. A rowdy pink woman with a cheerful husband happily told her that yes, a young man with long hair and a woman with full red lips passed through here just yesterday. Slept in their spare room even. Apparently, they were newlyweds.

And now, they were traveling through hyperspace on an aircraft Jane didn’t even have time to marvel at, let alone take samples of the terrain. Because she had things to do, Jane told herself as she pressed the red button on the remote and zapped back to her laboratory.

She quickly told Tony and Vision, and Tony barked out a laugh when she reached the part about the spare room. “Did you get a look at the room? Was it a honeymoon suite?”

.

.

.

She was looking at him. Staring. For the past half hour.

“What?” Bucky asked her, frowning.

Darcy tilted her head, as if measuring him up. “I was just thinking,” she said matter-of-factly, “whether I should make out with you now or wait until we’re in a room that’s not made of metal and actually has a bed.”

Bucky choked. From the door that was ajar, Rocket shouted, “No defiling of the storage room! I keep my good power tools in there!”

Bucky swallowed hard. His eyes danced away from her face, but somehow kept wandering back to her anyway. His breath stuttered just slightly when he saw she was serious.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Bucky said tersely.

Darcy bit her lower lip, something Bucky noticed she did often. He tried not thinking of how he wanted to tug her lip from her teeth and swipe his tongue across it.

“This morning I was a genius,” Darcy said quietly. Bucky winced and scrubbed the side of his jaw with his hand, staring at his lap.

“You don’t want me. Believe me.”

Darcy’s face hardened. “Don’t tell me what I want and don’t want.”

She leaned closer. His eyes focused on the soft pink lips parted slightly, watching her tongue dart out to moisten her lips. Like a moth to a flame he drew close to her, mesmerized by the way she was looking at him.

A knock on the door had them jerking away from each other. Darcy glared at their intruder, fighting the rush of scarlet burning her cheeks.

Gamora gave them a knowing look before crossing her arms. “Ten minutes ‘til we land.” She looked at them curiously. “We usually don’t do transportation. It’s lucky we were already headed to Earth.”

Darcy nodded. “Yeah, we had no idea that air ship would drop us off in the Andromeda galaxy and not the Milky Way. It’s lucky you guys came when you did.”

Gamora gave a smile-but-not-smile. Bucky tilted his head.

“You should stay a night,” he said quietly. “You remind me of a comrade. I think you’d get along.”

“Oh yeah?” Gamora raised a perfect brow. “What’s his name?”

The corner of Bucky’s lips turned up, just so. “ _Her_ name is Natasha.”

.

.

.

The moment the aircraft landed on top of his helipad and Bucky and Darcy came running out, followed by a raccoon, tree, bluish man, green woman, and a guy in a mask, Tony decided it was time for an early retirement.

“Friday. Alert Jane to come up to the helipad,” Tony said vaguely. “Alright. Newbies. Aliens. Your feelings on world domination and subjugation?”

They stared at Tony blankly.

“This how you say hello to everyone?” the raccoon groused. He looked up at the masked man. “Now I get why you’re such a shit, Peter. No manners is just part of your race.”

.

.

.

Jane cried on Darcy’s shoulder for a solid hour. Darcy couldn’t believe it when Jane garbled out that she’d built another remote, had gone to Tartaret and searched for her, met Egra, and had essentially gone across the universe to find her.

“Jane,” Darcy’s voice broke. “I love you so, so much. Here, check out my phone. I took pictures of the terrain. There’s even a soil sample in my pocket.”

Jane let out a watery shout of glee, and immediately started scrolling through the pictures.

.

.

.

The two women stared at each other silently.

“I hear you are called Natasha.”

The red-haired woman quirked a brow. “Newcomers can call me Natalia.” The green woman’s mouth twitched. “And you?”

“I’ll let you know when I finish you in a spar.”

Natasha grinned.

.

.

.

Darcy didn’t see Bucky for three days.

He wasn’t avoiding her, she could tell as much. And it wasn’t that she was actively looking for him either. But in the morning when she went down to Tony’s lab and set a cup of coffee on his table, she asked him right then.

“Have you seen Bucky?”

Tony gave her an odd look. “What happened to ‘Barnes’?”

“That died when we nearly got eaten by space slugs. Bucky, where is he?”

Tony sighed, turning back to the piece of machinery in his hands. “Man’s sick. Yeah, I know, I didn’t think it was possible either. Just got a killer headache, I think. All the space travel really did a number on him. I’m surprised you aren’t affected too.”

“I…yeah.” Darcy stared distantly.

Tony glanced at her carefully. “I don’t think I’ll be needing a shadow today. You’ve done this set a dozen times. Why don’t you head on back to your room and get some sleep. Hell, you shouldn’t even be back to work now anyway. I gave you a week off.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to get some rest.” She worried her bottom lip and glanced at Tony warily.

Tony gave a half-smile. “Go on.”

Darcy bound up the stairs and out the lab, heart thundering abnormally fast in her chest. Christ, did she just get Tony’s blessing, or something? She didn’t like the way the man had snorted after her when she left, but Darcy couldn’t think of it too deeply. All she cared about right now was seeing Bucky.

“Friday?” Darcy called, staring at the ceiling. “Is it possible you could tell me where Bucky’s room is?”

She waited with bated breath. Then, “Sergeant Barnes has given you access to this information. His room is on the seventh floor, third door on the left.”

Her nerves were frazzled as she went up the elevator. He’d given her access. He specifically made sure Darcy knew where Bucky’s room was, in case she wanted to see him. She tried not to get ahead of herself, but the more she tried to fight it the more she couldn’t stop thinking about it—about him, about the way he smiled at her in those rare moments of humor he couldn’t squash down, about how he’d been glancing since Egra’s, the way his hand always seemed to reach for hers, even in Peter’s spaceship when they were completely safe.

Darcy stared at his door for a moment before taking a deep breath. Just as she lifted her hand to knock, the door opened.

They stood before each other, suspended in silence. Bucky’s hair was damp, as if he’d just finished taking a shower a few minutes before she arrived. Darcy tried not to glance down at his torso or the way his sweater was clinging to him. She licked her lips and said, “Hey.”

Bucky’s lip twitched. “Hey.”

Darcy fiddled with the sleeve of her sweater, twisting it between her fingers. “Heard you had a headache.”

Bucky nodded slowly. “’M feeling better now, finally.”

“Good! That’s…good.” Darcy stared up at him, feeling uncertain at the way this was going.

“…Do you want to come in?” Bucky asked tentatively.

Darcy nodded and smiled brightly. He stepped aside and held the door out, giving Darcy space to walk inside.

The apartment was sparse but well lived-in; there were bits and bobs on the coffee table, a blanket strewn across the sofa and a stack of books sitting on the floor. “Didn’t have time to clean up yet,” Bucky said behind her. He was rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

Darcy let out a small laugh. “You should see my apartment. This place is pristine, believe me.”

“Yeah?” Bucky was near her, head tilted to the side. His hand came up, gently sliding his fingers up her arm and pushing off her long curls over her shoulder.

“Yeah.” Darcy tilted her head up at him. His eyes searched hers, flickering over her face, her lips, then drawing inward every so often, as if uncertain. “Hey.” Darcy gently brushed her fingers over cheek.

“’M sorry.” Bucky’s voice was low.

“Why?”

Bucky shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “I haven’t…I can’t…” He was closing in on himself, eyes shuttering. The hand fell from her shoulder. “I don’t remember things. S’just a part of who I am now. I…haven’t…I….not in a long time.”

Darcy lifted his chin, forcing him to meet her gaze. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Alright? It’s fine. Whatever you’re okay with. That’s how this stuff works.” Darcy slid her hand into his. “Is this okay?”

Bucky stared at their hands, cool metal against warm flesh. He nodded a little. “Yeah.”

“’Kay.” Darcy smiled. “Wanna watch something? You got Netflix?”

Bucky nodded again, and they walked over to the sofa and sat down, hands still firmly held.

They spent the rest of the afternoon binge-watching whatever Darcy put on for him. Her heart felt light whenever he laughed, the sound so beautiful and new to her ears. She loved the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he grinned, the way his tongue would run over his top lip when he tried to hide a smile. He made Darcy put on that song by The Four Tops and grinned when Darcy sang along, moving this way and that on the sofa while using the remote as a microphone.

When the sun began to set and they were an hour into their next movie, she felt it. His fingers, brushing the hair from the nape of her neck. Trailing along her bare shoulder where the sweater had dropped down hours ago. Darcy turned a little, just enough to see him bend down and press a soft kiss to her shoulder.

Her heart stuttered a beat. Bucky looked at her, still unsure, but now mixed with some a little braver. Darcy lowered her eyes when Bucky leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek.

She tilted her head so their foreheads touched, his breath mixing with hers, slow exhales, soft inhales. She waited, waited until he caught his breath, until he was ready to move. Their lips brushed together in a feather light kiss, and she heard him inhale sharply before tilting his head and kissing her firmly.

Their lips moved slowly, savoring every little gasp, every little sound that came from Darcy’s throat and every faint groan that passed through Bucky’s lips. His hand tangled in her hair and he tugged her closer, wrapping an arm around her waist as Darcy’s arms wound around him, sliding gently up his back and down his chest. He chased her lips when she pulled back for air and only gave a second’s reprieve before dragging her lips back to his. Bucky’s hands wrapped around her waist and suddenly pulled Darcy over his lap.

Darcy pulled away from his mouth, shifting over his lap. “Is this okay?” she asked, biting her lip unsurely. Bucky’s eyes shuttered as they stared at her mouth.

“This is perfect,” he said quietly, and slid his thumb over her bottom lip, pulling it away from her teeth. “Love when you do that, doll. Been thinking about this lip for days.”

Darcy flushed, and instead of replying she gave a quick lick to his thumb. A breathless laugh escaped Bucky before he pulled her back to kiss her hard.

She didn’t know how long they spent just kissing, carding their fingers in each other’s hair, at her waist, until Bucky pulled away and pressed a trail of hot kisses down her neck, stopping at the juncture where her neck and shoulder met and kissing softly, before nipping her skin lightly with his teeth. Darcy sighed into him and made a small noise when his fingers slipped under the hem of her sweater and stroked the soft skin of her belly. She leaned in closer, eyes slipping closed when his hand crept up, stopping just under her breast.

“Is this okay?” Bucky asked quietly, his voice hoarse. Darcy opened her eyes to look at him, at the uncertainty and the want visible on his face, at the knowledge that if Darcy were to say no he would pull away without question and only touch her where she wanted him to. It made her feel so incredibly warm, her heart ready to burst with the feelings she was still afraid to admit, and Darcy nodded, smiling. “It’s perfect.” Gently, she cupped her hand over his own and slid it up slowly, until his hand was covering her breast. “I know you like this one,” she said with a teasing grin. “You groped it twice the first day on Tartaret.”

“I did _not_ ,” said Bucky, aghast, but his fingers still squeezed gently. Darcy giggled as she shifted closer, pressing herself against his hand.

“That! You did that! Once when we first crashed and once in the middle of the night, when you were sleeping against me.” Bucky suddenly turned red, biting his lip. “Oh yeah, I totally was awake for that. You pretended nothing happened in the morning, as if I didn’t know. You were so adorable.”

His eyes darkened, and Darcy bit back a moan when his thumb brushed against her nipple. “That so?”

“Mhm.” Darcy breath rushed out of her when his other hand snaked up her sweater and ran his fingers up her spine, pulling curiously at her bra strap. Darcy reached down and pulled her sweater off, dropping it on the floor.

Bucky’s eyes fell to her chest, looking curiously at her bra. “That’s not what I remember they looked like.”

Darcy blinked and glanced down at her bra, marveling for a moment at the fascinated little way Bucky’s hands were admiring the fabric. She wished she could say it was some kind of sexy bra, the lacy pushup ones from Victoria’s Secret, but it was one of her older cotton ones with the underwire almost poking out. This didn’t seem to bother Bucky one bit.

Forcing herself to remember how words worked, Darcy asked, “You remember what bras should be like? Back in the forties?”

Bucky opened his mouth, pausing to look up at her. “I…I do. I remember that. I can’t really explain how, but…I just know.”

Darcy smiled, humming when Bucky returned his attention to the ladies and palmed them with both hands. “That’s great, Bucky. That’s really great. Really, really…” she gasped when, with a curious glint in his eye, Bucky leaned closer and ran his tongue over her nipple, a wet spot now on her fabric. He seemed to like the way her voice turned breathless because immediately he pulled down the cup, exposing the soft flesh of her breast and the rosy, pink bud at its center. Bucky tilted his head before circling around it with his tongue.

Darcy’s head fell back as her hands dove in his hair, her hips instinctively rolling against his. Bucky groaned and she felt him reach behind her back and unclasp her bra, letting it fall away from her shoulders and Darcy threw it next to her sweater. She felt oddly exposed then, noting how she was half naked and he still had all of his clothes on. Darcy crossed her arms.

“You. Sweater. Off.” Bucky stared at her for a second, distracted by the way her breasts pushed up when she crossed her arms, and quickly tugged off his sweater, throwing it behind him. Darcy’s eyes darkened as she stared at his abdomen, his chest, to the metal shoulder where cybernetic arm met. He was watching her guardedly, going very still under her eyes as they roved over him. She wanted to tell him she’d seen him shirtless before, on that very first time they met in Tony’s lab when he was getting fitted with his new arm. Instead, she smiled slowly. “You have got to show me how to get my abs to look like that.”

Bucky hid a smile, glancing at her stomach and brushing his fingers lightly against it in a soft caress. “I could train you, if you want to.”

“Mm, might be nice to look good for once,” Darcy shrugged, dropping her arms to run her hands up his chest.

Bucky looked at her oddly, and stilled her hands. “You would look beautiful. And you look beautiful right now too.”

Darcy pressed her lips together. “Yeah?”

Bucky held her gaze. “Yeah.”

He kissed her and the hesitation and tentative touches were gone, replaced with a burning kind of desire that left them breathless and clinging to each other desperately. Bucky’s mouth slanted over her and his tongue brushed against Darcy’s, a low moan coming from her mouth as their bodies pressed together, warmth spreading from where their lips touched down to her toes. Bucky’s hands came down to squeeze her ass and drag her hips over his, and slowly Darcy’s hips moved against him.

Bucky tore his lips away from Darcy’s and closed his eyes, holding her hips still. Darcy stopped, looking at him in concern. “Too fast? We can stop.”

Bucky shook his head, eyes still closed as his fingers flexed at her hips. “No,” he said quietly. “Just…need a minute.”

“Okay.” Darcy brushed the hair from his eyes, running her fingers through his hair in soothing little sweeps. Bucky opened his eyes, watching her with a look of tenderness. Darcy smiled down at him, but he frowned and looked away, staring out the window.

“Feel kind of dumb, to be honest,” Bucky muttered lowly. Darcy’s fingers stilled, eyebrows knitting together as she gave him a questioning frown. He shrugged. “Don’t even know if I’m doing this right…if I’ll know, when…”

“It’s right if we feel like it’s right,” Darcy murmured quietly. “This here is right. There’s no textbook way to do this. That’s boring.” When he didn’t say anything, Darcy added, “And remembering this stuff isn’t that memorable sometimes. My first time was pretty damn awful.”

That got his attention. He turned back to her. “What happened?”

Darcy shrugged, inhaling deeply. “You know. Fumbled around awkwardly in all our nineteen-year-old glory. Didn’t really do the foreplay thing so it hurt a bit. He didn’t like that it was quiet so he started humming the Imperial March halfway through.”

“Jesus,” Bucky grimaced, running his hands comfortingly up her sides. Darcy shrugged again.

“But that’s the point. You figure out what’s right. Take your time.” She smiled softly, and Bucky smiled back, a touch of shyness in his gaze.

“How did I get so lucky?” He murmured against her skin, dropping a kiss on her collarbone.

Darcy grinned. “You went in a black hole with me. If that’s not the start of an epic love story, I don’t know what is.”

Bucky froze, and for a second Darcy though she’d said something wrong, an apology on the tip of her tongue, when Bucky reached up and pressed his lips firmly to hers, catching her lower lip between his teeth. She arched her back when he pressed her flat against himself, chest to chest, waist to waist. Darcy yelped when suddenly he shifted and stood up, walking towards the bedroom as he held her beneath her thighs.

Darcy saw his little smirk and raised an eyebrow. “You gonna throw me on the bed and have your way with me, Barnes?”

With a wicked smile, he did just that.

Darcy bounced a little on the bed when he dropped her, his eyes following the way certain parts of her bounced generously as well. Darcy wagged her feet and Bucky reached over to pull down her leggings, lifting her hips as he slowly sliding them down and dropping kisses on her knees. Darcy sat up to work on the drawstring of his pajamas, already seeing the evidence of their activities in the hardness concealed behind them. Shrugging out of the pajamas Bucky immediately set to work on kissing her until she forgot everything else.

Their heated kisses drifted to her neck, his shoulders, the dip of his temples and the sensitive skin of her abdomen, the muscles jumping as he licked over her belly button down to the curve of her hip. She moaned, arching back when his left hand tweaked over her nipple and he dragged his mouth to close over the other, watching her every movement, every twitch and taking in every breathless sound she made, watching for what she liked and what made her writhe against him. Bucky leaned up to pressed their foreheads together as one hand reached down to carefully brush against her center.

The air rushed out of her when Bucky watched and waited, fingers moving slowly, increasing the pressure when her hips involuntarily twitched against his hand. He stopped at her clit just for moment before gently circling around it.

Darcy wanted to touch every part of him, memorize the way his eyes were blown wide and dark as he drank in every inch of her body, feel the hard planes of his back and his stomach and press kisses on his face until he laughed. She kissed him hard as she reached down to touch him through his boxers. She felt the hand at her panties stutter and a soft moan rose in his throat, before he wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her away.

“You,” Bucky said against Darcy’s lips, their breath mingling. “You first.”

Darcy wanted to protest, wanted to say she wanted him to feel good and she wanted to be the one to do it, but the way he was looking at her—searchingly, hoping she would grant him this one thing, made the words die in her throat. She nodded, knowing that they had all the time the world had to offer.

Darcy lifted her lips as he slid down her panties, swallowing thickly at the way he was looking at her—reverently, unbidden with want. Bucky’s eyes flickered over to hers and her heartbeat quickened. “You’re so fucking beautiful, doll.” He ran his tongue over his lips, a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth when Darcy grinned.

“You too, honey bunch.”

Bucky snorted. “That fucking song,” he shook her head as Darcy laughed. The laugh caught in her throat when Bucky shifted down to press a kiss to her inner thigh, and used his hands to spread her legs wider.

Darcy was pretty certain she was ruined for all other men the second Bucky put his mouth on her.

Her hips jerked, tiny little twitches and soft, breathy sounds as he explored her, tongue lapping at her folds, moaning against her and every cell in her body vibrated until she was shaking. Bucky’s tongue found its way to her clit and she peered down at him, his eyes catching hers before he parted her lips and circled his tongue around her slowly.

Darcy’s head fell back, her back arching. “Fuck,” she grappled with the sheets, hands clenching tightly as he lapped at her, and bit back a moan when Bucky pressed a finger inside her, then another, moving slowly and curling them just so. Darcy’s hands dove in his hair and _tugged_ , pressing herself against his mouth and desperately seeking the release building up inside her, slowly at first but then almost unbearable. “Bucky— _Bucky_ —oh god—”

Darcy’s legs clamped around Bucky’s head as her body stiffened, tremors running through her body. Bucky brought her down gently, pressing little kisses against her and up her thigh, fingers slipping out of her. When she opened her eyes she found him looking at her tenderly, running his fingers through her hair.

“Was that okay?” Bucky asked her softly. Darcy huffed out a little breathless laugh.

“So okay. So, so okay.” Bucky smiled, and it widened to a full grin when she added, “You, yeah, definitely know what you’re doing. Memory not an issue. Just—do that. Always.”

She tasted herself on his lips when they kissed, rolling her tongue with his as she helped him discard the last piece of clothing between them. Darcy reached down and closed her hand around him, reveling in the way Bucky’s breathing stuttered and his hips jerked as she ran her hand up his length, thumb swirling along the tip.

With a low growl Bucky tugged under Darcy’s thighs and yanked her closer, pushing her knees up as he settled his hips against hers. He crushed his body to hers, holding her as close as he could as he sucked on her neck. Darcy rolled her hips against his, feeling him hard against her. Bucky hesitated then, peering in her eyes with a flicker of uncertainty. Darcy lifted her head to kiss him gently on the corner of his mouth. He exhaled slowly, then nudged her thighs apart as he pushed into her.

They gasped in unison, going still. Darcy shifted her hips a little, adjusting to him. He pressed kisses along her throat and she rain her nails lightly up his back, making him arch a bit and push deeper inside her. Darcy bit her lip, a small moan escaping her, and urged Bucky to move with a roll of her hips.

It started slow, soft. Darcy realized then that this was who Bucky was, who he always had been before. Bucky was soft and gentle with hands that worshipped her, the very same hands that put bullets through people’s heads and snapped necks—he was expressive, _so_ very expressive in every pleasure he felt, so readable where they had tried to make him cold—he was always watching what she liked, what she didn’t like, noticing the second something made her gasp a little more loudly and then doing it again and again until she was clawing at his back and saying his name in a fervent mantra.

Bucky pushed back her leg and changed the angle, sinking into her deeply and rubbing against her clit. Darcy’s hips rolled with him as he asked her if she liked it, and yes, yes she liked it very much, please keep doing exactly that, until he was pounding into her and robbing her of her breath.

Darcy shifted under him and pushed against Bucky’s chest, letting her roll them over so that she straddled him. Bucky watched her curiously as she reached for him and guided him at her center, hips raised over his. “This okay?” Darcy asked.

Bucky swallowed hard and nodded, eyes flickering between their bodies and back to her eyes. Darcy sank down, sighing when she felt him push deeper than before. His hands found their way on her hips as she pressed her palms against his chest, and rolled her hips.

Bucky’s mouth parted as Darcy moved over him, his hips meeting up to grind against hers and Darcy bit her lip, his look of wonder turning her on even more. His hand wrapped around the back of her neck and pulled her down for a ravaging kiss.

Darcy squeaked a little when suddenly Bucky sat up, shifting her hips to keep their rhythm and let her adjust. “Holy shit,” Darcy gasped, and Bucky seemed to share the sentiment, groaning loudly. She met him thrust for thrust, hitting her deeply as her thighs began to burn. Darcy whimpered when it became too much, panting, “I really need to start working out.”

Bucky chuckled and pressed a sweet kiss to her temple. “You will,” guiding her back down on the mattress and anchoring himself with his arms on either side of her.

“You should—train me,” Darcy ended with a high-pitched moan as he hit her in a spot that made her toes curl. Bucky glanced down, taking in the look on her face and then tentatively thrust against her in that spot again. Darcy’s back arched off the mattress with a whimper that turned into a broken cry when he decided to turn his focus there and thrust against it until she screamed.

“Bucky—fuck—” Darcy couldn’t stop the words that fell from her lips, hands raking over him as his mouth sucked on her throat, his metal fingers closing over her breast as the other snaked its way between their bodies and rubbed against her clit. “C’mon doll,” Bucky said hoarsely. “C’mon, Darcy—”

Darcy’s hips stuttered against his as wave upon wave crashed over her, leaving her boneless and twitching underneath him. Darcy heard Bucky groan loudly, pounding into her hard until his hips faltered, body tensing above her.

Bucky took care not to collapse his entire weight against her, rolling over just enough to be at her side. Darcy waited until they caught their breath, then glanced at him.

He was staring at the ceiling, then turned to her. Darcy wiggled her eyebrows a bit, smiling, and Bucky grinned, pulling her against him and tucking her hair behind her ear. “So I’m thinking, muscle memory is a thing. Like riding a bike, driving a car. Eating out a girl until she has an orgasm; sexing up said girl until she has another orgasm. I don’t—don’t think you should worry about it.”

Bucky licked his lips, a self-satisfied smile creeping on his face. “You think so?”

“Oh yeah,” Darcy nodded against his shoulder, wiping the sweat from her forehead. “Remind me to thank Jane later.”

“Why?”

Darcy shrugged. “If her machine hadn’t caught fire, we’d never have gone to Tartaret. And realized we’re awesome together. And had the sex.”

“I don’t know,” Bucky rubbed his thumb across her cheek. “Maybe I’d chalk up some courage and talk to you. Definitely wanted to. Maybe it woulda happened.”

Darcy hummed in agreement. “I’m sure it would’ve. And that would’ve been fine too.” Gently she pressed her lips against his, breaking off with a smile.

That turned promptly into a frown as she looked at the wall behind him, and let out a shriek. “Space slug! _Space slug!_ Bucky do something!” Bucky jolted.

“Shit! How did it—”

“I don’t know I don’t know _just do something oh my god!_ It’s hissing, Bucky HOLY SHIT—”

With a knife Darcy didn’t know was near the bed and precision Darcy would never have, Bucky, in full naked, sweaty glory, knelt on the bed as the knife embedded into the wallpaper and ended the space slug.

Panting, they looked at each other.

“It wasn’t us,” Bucky said evenly.

Darcy shook her head, then remembered Jane had followed them to Tartaret. “ _Jane_.”

Bucky’s lips tugged into a smile. “Still wanna thank her, doll?”

Darcy threw a pillow on his face (which he caught, bastard), and he kissed her deeply.

.

.

.

“Not to be a moodkill, Buck, but you need to get rid of the dead space slug if you want to go for round two.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! I drew inspiration from a lot of sources to create this fic, with nods to That 70s Show, Legolas in the third LoTR movie, the bollywood movie DDLJ, and that bit with Smitty is from Spongebob. Clearly all good things a sexy crackfic make.
> 
> The song Darcy refers to is called I Can't Help Myself by The Four Tops (Motown). 
> 
> It took three days and nights to plan and write this and if you have a tiny bit of kindness, please, please let me know what you thought! It would mean the world to me xxx


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